Page 65 of Love At Peace

She squeezed my hand, stunning me with the strength of her touch and the power of her love. “Yeah. We’re going to buy that house with the huge porch. I knew it would be our home the second I saw the pictures.”

“If you say so,” I teased.

She reached up to frame my face then kissed me hard.

It only took a lot of drama and a dose of danger to finally understand what it meant to come home.

Chapter 25

Heather

New Year’s Day...

Fergus shook his head as he took the glasses out of the box in the kitchen. He wasn’t a fan of moving heavy things, so in the teamwork-styled effort of Roarke and I moving into the farmhouse we’d both had our eyes on, he delegated himself to unpacking.

“These just scream...the nineties.” He sighed and set the brand-new glasses into the cupboard.

“They also screamed I’m on sale,” I told him as I slid the knife over the tape of another box.

Buying this house was a breeze. No other serious offers were on the table. No one was really house hunting at this time of the year, and unless someone was working at the Grand River Ranch, no one was looking to relocate to work here and need a home. Burton was small and remote like that.

On the matter of relocations, Janelle wasn’t surprised when I told her I wanted to stay at my position at the bank right here in town. A week after David tried to shoot Roarke, I told her that I wasn’t going to apply for that transfer to the branch opening in Wisconsin Dells.

“Well, duh,” she’d said good-naturedly.

“You suspected I would pass on it?”

She nodded, smiling slyly. “I could just tell. When I first told you about it, your first reaction wasn’t one of oh, wow, I can’t wait!”

I had no desire to start a new job without Janelle, Fergus, and Nance with me. After David was taken in, I had zero worries about my job at the bank. That toy drive and charity program was over, and with the evidence they had of David and Nevaeh breaking onto my laptop, I was cleared of any fault.

My job was secure here, and I was pleased about that. While it wasn’t what I went to college for and it wasn’t the career I daydreamed of having, something high-powered and important in a skyscraper office in a big city, it was my job and I intended to have it for a long while. A raise would help, but I could be patient.

“Money can’t be that tight,” Fergus said. “Can it?” He furrowed his brow.

“Only you would be so damn forward and blunt to outright ask her something like that,” Nance scolded as she brought a couple more small boxes in.

She was helping, too, but she insisted she could do the grunt work the same as the boys. Her husband was out there with Roarke, Eric, and Todd moving the furniture. Gavin was still recovering and overseeing it all.

“Money is sort of tight,” I admitted. “Between Roarke’s ex wringing every penny she could from him, Nevaeh stealing from him, and then both of us pitching in what we could to help her move to Des Moines, yeah, money’s sort of slim. Besides. They’re just glasses. We can replace them once we replace a ton of outdated crap in this house.”

“You make it sound like you’ll be living in a reno,” Nance said.

“We will be,” I replied as she walked away. I grinned at the thought. Roarke and I weren’t just moving in together. We were making a home together.

“Would you have bought this house if Todd wasn’t taking those cabins out?” Fergus asked.

“Sooner or later.” I sighed, watching the men out the window. Gavin seemed to be directing the movers to get the bedframe off the truck, but Todd wasn’t hearing it. Nance joined the scene though and she told them what was what. They were back in business, moving the heavy wood.

“Todd wasn’t going to kick me out of the cabin until I had something lined up,” I reminded Fergus. “But it just so happened that when Roarke’s cabin flooded, he was looking at places. And this one was just it.”

“Don’t bang up the walls,” Todd shouted from the other room.

“No. Screw the walls,” Roarke argued. “We’re going to demo it in here. Just don’t scrape up the frame. It’s new.”

“That’s what I meant,” Todd replied.

I laughed. “That’s why money is sort of tight. We had to buy almost everything new.” Roarke didn’t have much in storage. And I didn’t either. All the furniture was like starting from scratch. Some was used, like the things we found online, but those were hit or miss. “I prioritize having a new, solid, comfortable bed than non-nineties glassware.”